“If you are a stranger to the hard sciences,” Michael Nguyen-Kim argues, “there is no inherent reason to succumb to the pro-coding rhetoric that is all too prevalent nowadays.”
In recent years, the rise of Silicon Valley and the growing ubiquity of digital technology have elevated coding to the forefront of public consciousness. Previously considered the bastion of speckled teenage boys huddled over glowing screens in the early hours of the morning, learning to code (or at least paying lip service to the notion) is now almost de rigeur. Even celebrities such as Karlie Kloss and will.i.am have taken the plunge. But coding is still not widely taught in schools, and few of us actually take the liberty of teaching ourselves.
Here’s the thing about coding – it’s hard. Sure, most people could make a basic chatbot or print out the numbers from one to a hundred given a subscription to how much do computer engineers make and enough spare time (although it has been suggested that many find it difficult to achieve even this basic level of competence). But this level of skill is trivial in the grand scheme of things. Knowing a “little bit” of programming is redundant because anything simple enough to be created with that “little bit” of knowledge has probably already been implemented (better) by other people. Classic beginner programming projects often take the form of basic programs, such as replica Tic-Tac-Toe games or to-do list apps. Although fun to make, they are neither novel nor practical.
